Switch to the Majority Leader's office.
202-225-3130
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Nixon's America
Congratulations, Steny Hoyer, for your efforts in restoring the monarchy.
1705 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Phone - (202) 225-4131
1705 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Phone - (202) 225-4131
IT'S ALL ABOUT OIL!!!!!!!!!
Inevitably when I do a post like the one below people jump in to assert I'm stupid or naive for suggesting otherwise. The Bush administration is not a monolith, it's made up of a large number of players. More than that, even to the extent that it's about money in broad terms, there's more than just oil. Remember that military industrial complex that dirty fucking hippie Eisenhower warned us about? Bush obviously had messianic delusions about the world being reshaped by the power of his mighty codpiece. And there were crazy people around who I think genuinely believe that Saddam has been behind every negative deed in the world in the past 15 years. Others, I think, simply believe in American hegemony and figured the Middle East was a reasonable place to expand it. Due in part, of course, to the presence of oil.
Absent oil or some other valuable resource that part of the world would be much less interesting to us. Oil's a big part of this story, but it isn't the only piece and even if one doesn't grant any genuinely positive motivations to those who brought us his disaster, there are still plenty of malevolent ones in addition to oil. Sure it's about oil, but it isn't the only thing going on here.
Absent oil or some other valuable resource that part of the world would be much less interesting to us. Oil's a big part of this story, but it isn't the only piece and even if one doesn't grant any genuinely positive motivations to those who brought us his disaster, there are still plenty of malevolent ones in addition to oil. Sure it's about oil, but it isn't the only thing going on here.
Kick Their Ass And Take Their Gas
As Yglesias suggests, I don't really think we went to war in Iraq for oil, or at least that wasn't the primary motive of a lot of the major players, but it is part (though again, not all) of the reason we'll stay there forever.
So we'll spend a hell of a lot of money and lose a lot of lives presiding over an occupation and using our military to provide security for the private security which will be guarding the commercial interests involved in oil extraction.
And since it's against Village etiquette to suggest that we we are engaged in an imperial colonial adventure, it will be almost impossible to debate the merits of our policies in Iraq or even have a vaguely honest discussion about what those policies are. Hiding behind peeance and freeance and a "desire for victory" and fears of the "inevitable" regional war if we leave to obscure just what it's all about.
So we'll spend a hell of a lot of money and lose a lot of lives presiding over an occupation and using our military to provide security for the private security which will be guarding the commercial interests involved in oil extraction.
And since it's against Village etiquette to suggest that we we are engaged in an imperial colonial adventure, it will be almost impossible to debate the merits of our policies in Iraq or even have a vaguely honest discussion about what those policies are. Hiding behind peeance and freeance and a "desire for victory" and fears of the "inevitable" regional war if we leave to obscure just what it's all about.
Thursday Is New Jobless Day
Still high, with 381K new lucky duckies. Continuing claims increased declined slightly..
No Public Financing
Obama's opting out officially, sez CNN.
Good. I've long been somewhat wary of public financing in general terms. It was a solution to a problem, but not the only one, not necessarily the best one, and definitely not a solution immune from exploitation such that it could eventually become part of the problem itself. That is, something incumbents could manipulate to their own advantage in various ways. Details matter.
Obama found another solution to the problem, demonstrating that it is possible to raise immense amounts of money from small (and larger, too, of course) donors. It's now part of what presidential candidates will have to figure out how to do to win, and there's nothing wrong with that. The problem was never money in politics, it was the concentration of big money.
Good. I've long been somewhat wary of public financing in general terms. It was a solution to a problem, but not the only one, not necessarily the best one, and definitely not a solution immune from exploitation such that it could eventually become part of the problem itself. That is, something incumbents could manipulate to their own advantage in various ways. Details matter.
Obama found another solution to the problem, demonstrating that it is possible to raise immense amounts of money from small (and larger, too, of course) donors. It's now part of what presidential candidates will have to figure out how to do to win, and there's nothing wrong with that. The problem was never money in politics, it was the concentration of big money.
No Bid
Nobody could've predicted, blah blah blah.
Now maybe all the serious people in Washington can acknowledge what the dirty fucking hippies have known all along. Just why do we need 58 bases in Iraq?
BAGHDAD — Four Western oil companies are in the final stages of negotiations this month on contracts that will return them to Iraq, 36 years after losing their oil concession to nationalization as Saddam Hussein rose to power.
...
There was suspicion among many in the Arab world and among parts of the American public that the United States had gone to war in Iraq precisely to secure the oil wealth these contracts seek to extract. The Bush administration has said that the war was necessary to combat terrorism. It is not clear what role the United States played in awarding the contracts; there are still American advisers to Iraq’s Oil Ministry.
Now maybe all the serious people in Washington can acknowledge what the dirty fucking hippies have known all along. Just why do we need 58 bases in Iraq?
Shorter Many Months Of Self-Righteousness
- You all thought Obama was liberal Jesus, and I tried to warn you that he's not!!!
Note that I'm quite happy for people to criticize Obama for failing to be whatever they want him to be, I'm just rather tired of the "I know you think/thought X but you are/were wrong!!!" construction. It'll be no shock to most of us if Obama is less than all we want him to be in many ways. Let's just hope he's more than we expect him to be in others.
Jenga
Keep waiting for this piece to be pulled out...
June 18 (Bloomberg) -- Bill Ackman was right: the world's largest bond insurers aren't worthy of a AAA credit rating and may be headed for the bottom of the scale.
Ackman, the 42-year-old hedge fund manager who says he stands to make hundreds of millions of dollars betting against MBIA Inc. and Ambac Financial Group Inc. if they go bankrupt, will tell investors at a conference in New York today that losses posted by bond insurers may threaten to breach the capital limits allowed by regulators, making them insolvent.
That once-unthinkable scenario would trigger clauses in $400 billion of derivative contracts written to insure collateralized debt obligations and other securities, allowing policyholders to demand immediate payment for market losses, which have reached $20 billion, according to company filings. Downgrades of the insurers would cause a drop in rankings for the $2 trillion of debt that the companies guarantee, wiping out the value of the CDO insurance held by Wall Street firms, analysts at Oppenheimer & Co. said.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
And When You've Finished With That
Please remove the state of Florida from all US maps. Thank you.
They're everywhere, from the bare-breasted ladies who decorate the fountain at Dupont Circle to the peekaboo statue in the Justice Department's Great Hall to the countless nudes in our museums. But while those of us who live here hardly blink at the public nudity, it can shock some of our visitors. Such was the case for Robert Hurt, who last week tried to add the issue of artistic indecency in the nation's capital to the platform of the Texas GOP.
"You don't have nude art on your front porch," the Dallas Morning News quoted the delegate as telling the platform committee at the state party convention. "So why is it important to have that in the common places of Washington, D.C.?"
Hurt, 54, a Kerrville, Tex., rancher and father of 14, told us in a phone interview he first came to Washington a decade ago for a gathering of the evangelical Promise Keepers on the Mall. "It was probably not much different than 'The Beverly Hillbillies' going to Beverly Hills," he joked. At the National Gallery, he was appalled to see statues of unclothed people. "I found it very inappropriate," he said. Returning a few years later, he discovered Arlington Memorial Bridge, flanked by the bare-chested figures of Valor and Sacrifice.
Indicted
NPR sez form Bear Sterns hedge fund managers were probably/will probably be indicted today.
Big Shitpile
May be claiming another victim.
Thornburg Mortgage, the jumbo mortgage lender that lost $3.31 billion in the first quarter, said on Wednesday it has received subpoenas from U.S. securities regulators and its survival remains in doubt.
The disclosures reflect further problems for the Santa Fe, New Mexico-based lender, which was on the brink of bankruptcy in March before raising $1.35 billion of capital.
You Can't Say That About Saint Rudy
Except I think they just did. DNC:
"Democrats are not going to be lectured to on security by the mayor who failed to learn the lessons of the 1993 attacks, refused to prepare his own city’s first responders for the next attack, urged President Bush to put his corrupt crony in charge of our homeland security, and was too busy lobbying for his foreign clients to join the Iraq Study Group,” DNC spokeswoman Karen Finney said. “Rudy Giuliani, can echo the McCain campaign’s false and misleading attacks, but he can’t change the fact that John McCain is promising four more years of President Bush’s flawed and failed policies on everything from energy security and the economy to the war in Iraq."
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